As you should know, Nikola Tesla's birthday was Wednesday. What better way to celebrate the life of a super genius inventor that has shaped our lives in so many ways, then a contest for some super genius inspired designs?

So your challenge, if you accept it, is to create a printable design that represents Tesla, and or one of his contributions. AC power, radio waves, wireless transition of electricity, what ever you use most, or see as most impressive.

I have wanted to make this ring for my Mom for a long time. She is a major Tesla fan. It is made to resemble the patterns created by a tesla coil around an object--your finger. I have always been fascinated with electricity and Tesla coils are super cool.

We could make the first primary out of steel, but what about the secondaries and second primary. Has anyone ever bothered to test if any of the black materials are conductive at high voltages? Or alumide? If any were we could use one of those to make the secondaries and second primary.

The ceramic material would most likely work as a good dialectic at high voltage.

I am new to Shapeways and have not yet set up shop. I am in the test phase and have only received a few parts so far.

So, I saw this contest and thought I would make a quick weekend attempt.

One of the iconic designs of Nikola Tesla is Wardencllyffe Tower. It was built for wireless electrical transmission. If this concept had proved out we would see these on the landscape today. Instead of our current electrical towers strung in a line all interconnected with wires, we would have one of these at a power generating plant and another at a receiving station with no connections in between. Wouldn't that be cool!

For my model I found old images of the original and images of a model that someone else had done. I took a few quick overall measurements of the original. The tower is straight forward, but the top dome structure is a bit of a mystery. The old images don't show enough detail to discern the actual geometry. The images of the model do not seem to match up exactly with the original. A quick look at the patent was no help either.

In the end I simplified some of the design and just guessed for other areas. I could not make the dome members as thin as they appear in the original. So, there are some discrepancies there, also.

I do think the overall appearance is a good mimic of the original. If I had more time I would probably throw in more detail and try to get a more accurate rendering.

One of my favorite things about Tesla is his love of the sphere to the point of having a custom spherical urn created to store his ashes upon his death. As such, I have designed this pendant with his urn as a central theme:

The central piece is a "hovering" sphere, representing his urn containing the remnants of his greatness. Emitting from the rear are stylized electrical arcs representing both his explosive genius and his experiments with all manner of electricity!

It is intended to be created in any of the glossy metals, any of the silvers, but would be best created in the premium silver!

While it may not be the most immediately obvious Tesla reference, I feel it would be a good conversation starter at a party when complimented by a matching silver chain. It could also be made to function as a pin with minor modification to the model.

One of the iconic designs of Nikola Tesla is Wardencllyffe Tower. It was built for wireless electrical transmission. If this concept had proved out we would see these on the landscape today. Instead of our current electrical towers strung in a line all interconnected with wires, we would have one of these at a power generating plant and another at a receiving station with no connections in between. Wouldn't that be cool!

If I'm not mistaken, the tower was meant to transmit and also be powered by the Earth's ionosphere, eliminating the need for power generating plants.
Unlimited free electricity... Would be very cool, but not very profitable.

I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me. -Maya Angelou
michael@shapeways.com Community Advocate

Here is a Nikola Tesla stamp ring from the ring creator but only in size 5. Nick is a bit wide in the face with larger ring sizes. I selected WSF because metal finger rings and Tesla lightning don't mix!

I need to stop picking such good topics, you guys can sure make picking a winner hard!

Innovo - I'd love to have that on my desk. Currently have 2D print outs of Tesla, Einstein, and Davinci looking over me.
trishycakes - That looks electrifying! Hope to see that at a future Baltimore meetup?
Brian_Richardson - The power of the Stash! A few of us Shapeways employees try to empower these with the use of beard power as well
tomatwell - Way to kick off being a new user, jumping right into a contest! One of many lost Tesla contributions that would make our technological world even more impressive.
coolbutpointless - Not sure his greatness could fit in such a small urn lol. But I certainly wouldn't mind having a piece of it.
sorhain - Can't have electrical coolness without coils.
draw - Stamps for the new ring creator. Interesting idea! 20 cent postage, those were the days.
JACANT - One of his great inventions, I can only image what he'd do with a 3D printer.
bartv - Great find! Need more Tesla recreations!

MrNib - oh no! Hopefully you're still inspired to create something without an award.
Daphne - Guess the deadline was too soon? Same goes to you, you guys can still share with us your inspiration!

Certainly not a run away winner, as all of the entries are amazing!
Alas I can only pick one, and this week it's Brian_Richardson with the Teslastache. I can't help but think that even Tesla would crack a rare smirk at your creation. And I'll add 3D printed lightning to the material wish list.

I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do is be on my own side, be an advocate for myself and others like me. -Maya Angelou
michael@shapeways.com Community Advocate

That is interesting! It's almost the electrical equivalent of a microwave waveguide filter except that such filters are generally bidirectional. They use structures like slots, holes, cylinders, cavities, etc. in a metal waveguide path to control what frequencies of electromagnetic energy are allowed to pass through the structure and which ones are blocked.

You can probably think of this Tesla gizmo as a unidirectional low pass filter, with constant unidirectional laminar air flow in one direction being equivalent to DC current. When you blow in the opposite direction you are essentially creating many kinds of circulating and reverse air flows (resonant or perhaps chaotic but certainly non-laminar) that tend to impede the flow of air. Another rough analog would be petting a porcupine. You only pet a porcupine from snout to tail, not the other way around!

Perhaps we next week we could have a contest to develop an app that recreates auto accidents with 3D prints?
. .

I found that amazing myself! Did he envision this in his mind as working I wonder or did he have other clues that led him to this design. He said that he could see machines working in his mind and could let them run in his mind and come back later and check for things like wear.